Giving focus to the Cultural, Scientific and Social Dimension of EU - CELAC relations

WP2 Transectorial Pathways

EULAC Focus intends to propose a new strategic and more focused framework for the cultural, scientific and social dimension of EU-CELAC relations. These three dimensions are intertwined by common challenges. Therefore, research into them must be cross fertilized by “Cross-cutting / trans-sectorial research pathways”. In principle, these cross-cutting issues will be classified as migration and mobility, inclusion and inequality, diversity, and sustainability (Migration and mobility are considered two different – even if unrelated - issues in accordance with the current EU approach since November 2011;

However, from a political perspective, migration, which, in fact, touches and encompasses all these issues, is gaining an ever-greater prominence, in particular from a EU perspective, in the EU–CELAC framework (EU-CELAC Structured Dialogue on Migration) as well as in general. Indeed, the European Council conclusions of June 2014 stress that migration policies need to become a stronger integral part of the Union's external and development policies through intensifying cooperation with third countries, while also calling for improving the link between the EU's external and internal policies (including research policy). Recent estimates putting at 72 million the international migrant population in Europe, and expectations that this number will increase in the future, due to economic, demographic and political factors, strengthen the importance to be given the European Council conclusions.